It's Natural To Be Afraid
by Gavrilo-Princip
Summary: Everything is worse in the dark. 3rd in the EitS series idea wouldn't go away so here it is


_Note: 3rd in the EitS series. Listened to this song and tried to think about what it could connect to and the larger thematic elements. I'm both happy with the way this turned out and I hate it, but within the interest of not turning back and moving forward, I want to give you this bit of characterization. For some reason it seemed like a plausible background/explanation for her demeanor. Plus I read the newspaper too much and that doesn't really contact a lot of happy. Here it is. It is what it is._

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At night, things can seem bigger than they really are. The darkness lends a kind of gravitas to them that can't be explained outside of the hindsight daylight provides. Shapes in the darkness seem larger, more threatening. Fears and insecurities are magnified in such away that makes them seem towering, terrifying, non-descript. With the unknown and unknowable comes a fear that feels dark and slick and totally unnatural. Absence of light makes things seem so much worse.

Jim has had his fair share of nightmares. He hasn't ever talked about them with anyone, not even with his parents. He would mention a nightmare and someone would inevitably ask what it was about and he would just tell them that he forgot. It wasn't that he was overly private; he wasn't. The dreams themselves weren't anything particularly brutal or terrifying. All in all, he figured that they were pretty run-of-the-mill as far as nightmares went. Dark figures chasing you, your only means of defense broken and useless, the inevitable conclusion which never arrived before awakening from the nightmare. No, it wasn't because of any of that. He just never found the _need_ to talk about them. He understood what they were and thus they held no power, no sway over him.

He thinks this is why he felt so lost and so _completely scared_ the first time Angela awoke next to him in the dark, shaking and sweating and gasping for breath, sounding for all the world like she was dying.

-----

The sound of the wind howling outside had lulled him to sleep almost as soon as he pulled Angela against him and shut his eyes. The scent of her hair, a sweet and natural smell, had drifted towards him and only served to speed up his falling asleep. Her breathing held him hypnotic in it's soothing pulse and he was out like a light, his face buried in her hair just before he went completely under. He dreamt of their time together that day. Grocery shopping and driving around aimlessly, talking about nothing. Laughter and music and the clear and comfortable weight of contentment and happiness that had settled within each of their souls. He was at the part of the day where they were holding hands in the line of a busy café and talking about what would most likely occur the coming week at work when he was jolted away by a strangled cry.

Blinking furiously, trying to see in the darkened room, he experienced the typical moment of panic anyone has after being unexpectedly yanked from sleep amplified tenfold by Angela's cry. By the time he looked over to see her eyes wide and scanning the room wildly, her hands frantically fisting the sheets next to her, she wasn't shouting out anymore. Instead, she just panted and whimpered and writhed in terror. She wasn't anchored and had no idea where she was or what was happened, not yet, and his only thought was to touch her and bring her back. He pushed the covers quickly to the foot of the bed and slipped an arm under her shoulders and one under her knees, feeling the sheen of sweat covering her pale skin, and pulled her close to him. Immediately her body tensed and her eyes found him, but she didn't seem to recognize him.

"Angela? Angela! Come on, it's me, baby. Shh," he held her, repeating comforting words until her heard her whisper-soft voice.

"Jim?" her body relaxed and she gripped the arms that were now holding her close to him. Almost immediately, she started coughing, her small frame shaking as she did so. He slid out of bed and took her hand and asked her if she wanted to go to the kitchen and get something to drink. Her coughs had subsided some, but she was still shaking and he couldn't be sure it was from the coughing, but she nodded and he gripped her hand tightly as they headed downstairs and into the kitchen.

Once she was seated at the small table in the dark, he snapped on the overhead light and they both blinked in the white-washed brightness of the room. Once their eyes had adjusted and they were no longer rubbing them, Jim filled a glass with water from the pitcher in the fridge and handed it to her.

"Here you go," he said quietly, suddenly awkward and confused now that his heart rate had slowed and the situation had calmed. The adrenaline ran out of his system and he began to feel weak and he sat down.

_God, my hands are fucking **shaking**_. He drew in a deep breath and looked at Angela, who drank the entirety of her water, finishing with a small gasp for air. They sat there in silence, both in their underwear and t-shirts. Jim hands continued to shake slightly underneath the table, so he started to pick at the worn wood of the table top for no other reason than to steady them. After a few moments, Angela cleared her throat and he looked up to find her brushing her sweat-dampened hair back from her face and reforming the pony tail that had come undone during her panic. She looked into his eyes and he could tell she was upset.

"I'm sorry," she offered meekly. Jim thought that she sounded like she wanted to say more.

"No, don't be. Totally alright. Must've been a really bad dream," he replied. He might have made a joke if he didn't sense that this wasn't just some ordinary dream. Something lighthearted to make her smile but she wasn't smiling now and he didn't think there was anything he could say that would change that. At least not yet. So he waited and continued to pick at the table top while they looked at each other.

The clock on the wall ticked softly in the silence and stillness while Angela sat with her arms crossed over her breasts protectively. She was hunched over, completely submissive to some unseen thing that had barged into his room while they slept. It was four thirty in the morning. They had been awake for about twenty minutes at this point. When she started to make thick swallowing noises like she was trying to swallow past some blockage in her throat, he noticed her eyes rimmed in red and recognized all the signs. He was out of his chair and on his knees by her side just as she leaned over heavily and buried her face in his neck and started crying.

He closed his eyes hard and rubbed her back, his own throat feeling thick, and hoarsely whispered assurances. Her thin arms were wrapped around his shoulders and she held tightly to him. He felt her breath, hot on his neck and her tears sliding down his skin to soak into his shirt. Any other time and the feeling of her pressed against his neck, the feel of her lips moving against his pulse point, would have quickly turned him on and his hands would have begun to caress and ultimately undress her. But in this moment, his hand moved steadly and smoothly up and down her back as her crying hiccuped to a stop and he felt his concern for her grow to an almost overwhelming state. She loosened her hold and pulled away. After she kissed him slowly, she took one of his hands in both of hers and asked him to sit.

"I need to tell you something. Something about what just happened," she said quietly after he had taken his seat. She squeezed his hand in hers and played nervously with his fingers.

"Oh, oh, no you don't need to explain anything," he said quickly, his curiosity overridden by the pressing desire to see keep her calm and safe from whatever had upset her so much. She held up a hand to stop any further argument.

"I want to," she lowered her hand back to his and sat in silence for a few minutes before taking a deep breath and then quietly and persistently told Jim a story about when she was a little girl.

She had been playing in her front yard. She remembered that it was hot out and she knew that her mother would, in a few moments, be calling her in for lunch. She told Jim that just as she thought that, someone grabbed her harshly from behind and clamped a hand over her mouth. He ran down the block with her as panic rose and her heart pounded against her little ribcage. The man shoved her in the back of his car and threw a heavy blanket over her head and told her to be quiet. After that, she said, she didn't remember a lot but she remembered it being hard to breath under the blanket in the July heat and even harder to breath once the car had stopped and the man carried her into his stuffy, sweltering house. She remembered he lead her into an upstairs room without any furniture. The house was cluttered and dusty. She sat on the bed and cried while the man repeatedly tried to get her to stop. She told Jim how crazy the man's eyes had been, even to a little girl. After what seemed like hours, after the man had tried to placate her with toys, there was a knock from downstairs. A neighbor had seen the man grab Angela and copied down the license plate. She was only gone for five hours, but it felt longer than that. The man left to go answer the door but he was maybe halfway down the stairs when she heard the door kicked in and then the house was filled with policemen who wrapped her in a blanket despite the heat of the late afternoon. She was taken home and the man was taken to jail.

For Jim, listening to the story was surreal and he had remained in a shocked silence for the duration. At times, she held his hands in hers so tightly that it became numb. She fell silent after telling him about the reunion with her mother. He had absolutely no idea what he could possibly say to all of that, but he tried anyway.

"That's...oh, God...it's...shit. I'm really sorry that happened to you," he finally managed to get out. She explained to him that she wasn't hurt and the man had never touched her, but she had these dreams on occasion where she was a little girl again and back in the backseat of the car or inside the sweltering house and things were different. Sometimes she died in the house. Jim noticed how pale she looked and they were quiet for a long time. It was after five in the morning and he cleared his throat.

"I have nightmares, too. I mean...this isn't even remotely the same, but when I was 12 my Aunt Casey died in a plane crash. Sometimes, like before I travel or really just at random, I'll have really vivid dreams about plane crashes. Sitting during take off and feeling the plane roll and come back down on the runway. Um...I've been burned alive more than a few times in my dreams," he tried to laugh to alleviate some of the tension in the kitchen. He looked at Angela and saw that she was smiling at him. It was a small smile, but he still counted it.

"I'm really very sorry this happened while I was spending the night. It's embarrassing and I'm responsible for you having to be awake and having an uncomfortable conversation this early in the morning," she shook her head. "I should be done with that incident. It should be over and done with and I shouldn't be afraid at night."

He squeezed her hand and he thought that they both felt lighter somehow. They stood and turned out the lights and he let her lead them back upstairs. Once in bed, she laid down with most of her body on top of him and ran her fingers through his hair as she kissed his chin. His hands crept up under her t-shirt and smoothed themselves along the gentle curve of her back. Just as the sun was coming up over the trees, she laid her cheek against his chest and their breathing evened out and they slept.

-----

There were a lot of things to fear and he supposed that there always would be. It was just the way it went. There was always the unknown to make us feel uneasy, but once you stopped regarding it as something supernatural, it just became something normal. You had to move forward, always. Jim was glad to do that, especially if moving forward meant he got to continue to hear Angela's even breathing and smell the scent of her hair as she slept, warm and slent, next to him.

He remembered what he told her right before they shut the lights off in his kitchen that night and went up to bed.

"It's natural to be afraid."


End file.
